


To remember

by semele



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-17
Updated: 2011-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:10:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written in Polish (see <a href="http://multifandom-pl.livejournal.com/519738.html#cutid1">here</a>), translated by Idrilka for <a href="http://womenlovefest.livejournal.com/profile">Women Love Fest</a>, because I'm incapable of translating my own work. Caroline/Damon, Caroline POV. It's not graphic or explicit, but the very idea of mind control as depicted in TVD freaks me out far more than chainsaws, hence the high rating. Fic is set in season two and deals with Damon abusing Caroline in early season one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To remember

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Pamiętać](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/4520) by semele. 



When Caroline’s memories start to come back, they come back in flashes.

At first everything is loud, so, so loud. People seem to swarm around her like insects (even when she’s all by herself in her hospital room, she can hear the mad cacophony of voices and feels like her skull is about to explode), the air is saturated with the smell of sweat, soap, and freshly mowed grass; Caroline can see even the tiniest dark spot on the ceiling and she just wants to run and hide, her bones throb with a dull ache and she can’t think. That’s when the first flash comes.

 _("Are you gonna kill me?"  
"Mhm. But not yet.")_

Caroline finds Damon at the fair and, shouting above the chaos and noise in her own head, she lays everything bare, out there in the open. She will never make that mistake ever again.

 

***

In time, everything goes back to normal, Caroline starts to gradually build a tentative friendship with Stefan and grows closer to Elena, tries to patch things up with Matt, learns to hunt and cover up her traces; she’s getting better at controlling her instincts. It takes her two weeks to silence the noises in her head, and when she finally figures out how to ignore the background noise and focus on what she wants to hear, she throws herself onto the bed and sleeps for the next twenty-four hours. She eats for two—hell, for ten, even—and starts to experiment with the spices, because now that she can sense even the tiniest difference in the way food tastes, she realizes that one drop of lemon juice or one pepper seed can make or break a dish.

There are things she tries not to think about (it hurts so much when someone bites into your neck, and it’s even worse the next time, and the time after that, the wounds don’t have enough time to heal properly, the skin around them quickly reddens and becomes swollen, and there’s blood and pus oozing from the puncture marks, and each and every time you rip off your scarf there are tears in your eyes and clenched teeth, and then a hypnotic voice says, “Stop!” so you stand still, clutching the bloodied scrap of fabric in your fist). Caroline turns off that part of herself, turns off all that anger and pain, and humiliation; all you have to do is flip the switch and snap, it’s that simple.

 _("They look so cute together."  
"Don’t talk, please.")_

When Damon, under the pretence of keeping an eye on Elena, decides to spend his evening brooding under her window, Caroline convinces Rose to teach her how to tell people and vampires apart using just her sense of hearing. Then comes the full moon.

 

***

Caroline is still dependent on the Salvatore brothers. She doesn’t know how to rob a blood bank and leave no trace behind yet, never before did she have to single-handedly dispose of dead bodies, and she doesn’t always know when to let go if she doesn’t want to kill the person she’s feeding on. Stefan is very understanding and kind, and Caroline really likes him, so she keeps telling herself that this whole thing is just between the two of them, that there’s no one else involved, that she’s just going through the motions and needs some help from a friend. She tries to make sure that when she comes by, Damon is not home. She can’t stand to see Andy.

She doesn’t dwell on the past. She focuses on Tyler and his werewolf problem, and her complicated relationship with Matt, she tries to help Elena, and when Bonnie finally gets off her high horse, she clings desperately to that rekindled friendship and does everything in her power not to lose it again. She learns how to smile and carry on, tabula rasa; when she has to, she can even talk to Damon in a civilized way.

"I’m proud of you," Stefan tells her one day. "You don’t brood over the past. That’s good."

For a split second, Caroline wants to scream, but she calms down instantly and doesn’t even feel all that anger anymore (she doesn’t feel a thing). She remembers what Katherine had done to Stefan almost a hundred and fifty years ago and thinks that maybe, of all people, he has the right to say things like that.

 _("You make me crazy, you know that? It's ok, I forgive you."  
"I swear, I didn't say anything."  
"Sh, sh, it's ok. Unfortunately, I am so over you right now.")_

The day before the confrontation with Klaus, Elena comes by and they both stand on the landing, eavesdropping on Stefan, Damon and Alaric arguing over the details of their plan. Elena says a few words in a hushed voice and Caroline doesn’t hesitate; instead, she bites into her wrist and holds her hand out to her friend.

***

Damon kisses differently than she remembered, deeper and not as gently, but that may be just a matter of the circumstances. Caroline bites his lower lip so hard she draws blood, and he lets her pin him to the wall as if he owed her something.

Her first instinct is to fight, to attack and to fight, that’s how all that started, anyway—first she was almost sacrificed along with her best friend and a would-be boyfriend, and then all hell broke loose, and all her emotions burst like water from a broken dam, flip and snap, it’s that simple. Later, back at home, Damon was just right there; he caught her by the arm, and she jerked away and lunged, hit him with such force that he almost got stuck in the bookshelf.

Now she’s tearing his tattered shirt off his body, but she can’t make herself sink her teeth into the vulnerable expanse of his soft, exposed neck. Blood is throbbing inside her skull, so loud that Caroline can’t hear a word even though she knows Damon is saying something, his throat working rhythmically, and among the mad cacophony of noises she begins to hear the familiar hypnotic tone.

It looks different than she remembered (she doesn’t remember a thing); Damon pushes her away and then follows her, lets her grab his hair and pin him to the table before he starts to kiss her again like he has finally acknowledged her as his equal. Caroline feels sick (vampires don’t feel sick), but the situation is anything but new, there had been, after all, a girl called Caroline who knew all about such situations and always came out on the other side with a fake smile painfully stretching her muscles and her head held high. She can do that again. She’s not human anymore, there is a different set of rules to follow now, the old definitions of some basic notions don’t apply anymore, they shift and change (oppressor, victim, harm, punishment), and what had happened to her before ceases to matter now.

 _("You are the only stupid thing here. And shallow. And useless.")_

Not that it’s ever had.


End file.
